A woman did not know she was sexually assaulted until she was told by police after passing out on a train, a court has heard.

The victim took prescription drugs that rendered her unconscious on a Metro train from Gateshead to South Shields on the evening of April 19 last year.

During the journey she was preyed upon by Leon Clarkson, 21, who told witnesses he was her boyfriend and has now been spared jail.

They saw him repeatedly putting his hand down her leggings while she was totally unconscious and unable to sit up.

A woman who saw what Clarkson, from Houghton, Sunderland, was doing felt uncomfortable and messaged her boyfriend who called police.

He told the witness that she was just a bit dizzy, but when he got her to her feet and led her off the train at Four Lane Ends the onlooker messaged her boyfriend who called police.

Another passenger saw him carrying her and asked what was happening, but Clarkson said the victim had had a joint and her mother was going to pick her up.

When police arrived she was very drowsy from taking three diazepam tablets so she was taken to hospital.

The victim told Newcastle Crown Court: ‘I had taken medication before I got on the Metro and I have no recollection of what happened to me.

‘The police investigating the crime told me what happened. This made me feel ill and very anxious.

‘I didn’t know who this man was. I didn’t even know what was happening to me. I was very vulnerable at that point and I think it’s terrible he could do that on a Metro in front of other people.

‘I’m very worried he will do this again to a vulnerable woman or girl. When I see a drunk girl or woman I now always tell them to get home safe and I worry about them.

‘I truly believe if he is capable of doing this in front of witnesses on a busy Metro train he could do something worse to someone else.’

Clarkson, who was previously convicted for committing a sex act on a bus, admitted sexual assault.

Recorder Tahir Khan KC told him: ‘The complainant was completely at your mercy and you took advantage of her by touching her when she clearly could not be consenting.’

He ordered him to take part in a sex offender programme and was put on the sex offenders’ register for five years.